Drowning in Friendship
by abelard
Summary: They're just friends. They'll always be. Just. Friends.


Title: Drowning in Friendship

Author: abelard

Rating: T

Spoilers: through Captain's Hand

Pairing: Apollo/Starbuck

Disclaimers: Not mine.

Summary: They're just friends. They'll always be. Just. Friends.

He takes the hand she offers. His fingers close around it and he doesn't let go. They exchange words, some teasing, some real. They are all forgiveness and friendship.

She said it earlier: Here we go. Once again, Apollo and Starbuck are friends. Just friends. As always and forever.

There is that thing in her eyes when she asks if they're okay. That need. As if she needs him to be more to her than this. She looks so lost and vulnerable like that; she needs a hug but more than that, she needs love.

He's not allowed to give her any. Not more than a friend would, at any rate. And it's that very wall, the line marked No More Than This, that makes him make her think he hates her. It's because she pushes him away that he drives her even further.

If she'd let him, he'd show her a thousand ways he could take that lost, lonely look out of her eyes.

He can guess at her motives for running from this thing, this "nothing," between them. He can think of several:

Possibly, she doesn't want him at all.

Possibly, she wants him, physically. That's very possible, she even said at least that much as he stood before her, shirtless and panting and hard. But doesn't love him at all.

Possibly, she loves him, but not like that. She won't ever love him like that, he's Zak's brother and he's her friend (that word again) and she doesn't want him to think it will ever be otherwise, because it won't.

Possibly, she loves him like that, or could, but she doesn't want to. And she won't ever want to. Because he's Zak's brother and he's her friend and she's a frak-up and they're both pretty frakked up over a shitload of things and so they'll end up tearing each other's lungs, guts, and hearts out before they're through with each other, and she won't put them through that, when they can be just exactly what they are today. Just. Friends.

Each of these scenarios are possible. And it is equally possible that whatever she fears, he does too.

But he is better at long-range planning than she is (of course she is better at split-second timing and last-second instinct). And he can see that where they are going is in two separate directions.

Does she really want him to be in a relationship with someone else? Does she really want him to settle down with some nice girl, who, though smart and elegant, isn't and will never be her?

He won't even ask, because he knows exactly what she'll say. Which is exactly what she thinks. She won't be lying when she says, "Of course I want you to be happy. Why wouldn't I want you to be happy. You deserve all the happiness in the worlds. Why wouldn't I want those things for you, I'm your friend."

It's that sort of talk that makes him want to strike her.

Okay, well, that is fine. Fine. She can push him away and away until he marries someone nice and normal. Fine. But there is an even darker possibility, one which he has faced before.

What happens when she falls for some other man?

He, the Other One, will be handsome and doting. He'll be gobsmacked in love with her, that's for damn sure. Apollo has seen how men can be when they've fallen face first for Starbuck. They are gone. And whoever he is, the Other One, will be so obviously and publicly devoted to her every merest wish and whim, and she'll fight him and try to keep it to a series of light fraks and she'll laugh, but in the end, she won't win, no, he, that Other One, he'll wear her down with all of his sweet adoration and then she'll look over and...

And she'll see Apollo with someone else, someone nice and normal, and she'll think...

Well, he's moved on. So should I.

And there Apollo will be. He can see himself watching her in the instant Starbuck decides. He'll be thinking, straining to think louder, loud enough for Starbuck to hear him: I haven't moved on I'll never move on You're always with me Even when I hate you I love you

She won't be able to hear his thoughts, of course.

And then where will they be? In separate lives. Watching each other give to other people the things that would flare up ten million times stronger between them. It takes only as much as the pressing of their palms together for those flames to fire up.

She's great at going with what's best in the moment, and he's better at the long-term. And neither of them is strong enough to stop themselves from remaining committed to the same useless battle plan as always.

They are, and always will be, friends.


End file.
